


Back Into Hell

by Aeshna_cyanea



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Emotional Hurt, F/M, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt, Mild Gore, Sort Of, Temporary Character Death, Wing Amputation, from the perspective of other characters not the POV ones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-31
Updated: 2018-10-20
Packaged: 2019-07-05 02:05:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15854010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aeshna_cyanea/pseuds/Aeshna_cyanea
Summary: Maze has found a way to return to Hell without Lucifer's help. Or rather, without his willing help. But will her desperate plan work? And how will Lucifer react when he finds out just how far his demon is willing to go?





	1. On Stolen Wings

**Author's Note:**

> This is a prompt fill for the following prompt from https://luciferprompts.tumblr.com :  
>  _Maze finds out that there is a way to get back to Hell: if she takes Lucifer's wings and has them sewn onto her own back, they will become her wings and she will be able to use them to fly down to Hell. As a side effect, her taking on the wings would mean that they would not regrow on Lucifer's back._ (https://luciferprompts.tumblr.com/post/173034280416/maze-finds-out-that-there-is-a-way-to-get-back-to)

Maze leaned back in the chair and stared at the scroll on the table before her. Shock numbed her senses. This was it. This was what she had been searching for: a way to return to Hell on her own. But she could hardly believe what she had found.  
  
Could it really be the way? Could it actually work? The old text was definite that it had worked once before. But could she trust a musty old scroll?  
  
The humans liked to say that all myths contained a grain of truth. But which part of the story was that grain? The theft? Most likely. The attempted transfer? Perhaps. But the success of the operation?  
  
And that one was the bit that mattered. Only if this crucial bit was true had she really found the solution to her problem.  
  
But what a solution! It was crazy. Fantastic. Unthinkable. And yet...  
  
Vague memories of her long, long ago childhood clawed their way to the surface. Things overheard as she hid in shadowy corners, spying on her mother and the strangers who came to visit her. She had learned much in that way, often things she was not supposed to know. And somewhere in there, she had heard the story. A rumor only, passed on in whispered half-sentences. Of an angel who lost his wings through trickery. Of stolen wings which the thief made her own.  
  
There was a tantalizing sense of ironic justice about it. The wings Lucifer had refused to use on her behalf would take her home without his help. And if it all worked, it would also mean that he'd get his wish and be rid of them.  
  
Perhaps she should tell him, ask him... No. She knew the selfish bastard too well for that. No matter how much he wanted to get rid of his wings, he would never let her have them. Not if it meant that she would be able to leave Earth, and him. She would have to take what she wanted, what she needed to gain her freedom and return home.  
  
Was she really willing to risk it though? But then, what other options did she have? Lucifer had refused to take her back to Hell. Cain had claimed to be able to get them both what they wanted, but she knew he was a ruthless, egotistical liar who would sell her out the second it was useful for him. In the weeks since he had talked her out of leaving LA, all he had done was worm his way into Decker's confidences - and her bed - and generally play the perfect boyfriend in an effort to get her to love him. He was convinced that the woman's love was the key to it, that once she loved him, she would have the same mortalizing effect on him that she had on Lucifer.  
  
Maze laughed derisively. She was certain that he was wrong there. Decker's powers over Lucifer were the result of her miraculous creation. His bastard of a father had her specially made for his rebellious son. For what purpose exactly, none of them knew, but Maze had her suspicions. It definitely wasn't just as a reward, a gift, as Amenadiel believed.  
  
Amenadiel. He would be only too happy to be rid of her, but he had lost his powers and was incapable of taking her back home. And Lucifer's other siblings were just as likely to decide to kill her as to take her back to Hell.  
  
No, this appeared to be the only way. She had spent weeks searching, and this was the only thing she had found. And if it didn't work...  
  
Lucifer would be furious, and he would never forgive her. So what. She did not want or need his forgiveness. For millennia, she had been his loyal servant, his friend, and what had that gotten her? He had dragged her away from the only home she had ever known, to this forsaken realm, and then he had gone and become obsessed with a human, and all but abandoned her. And the one time she asked him to do something for her, he refused, because he couldn't stand the idea that she would no longer be there to do his bidding.  
  
She was done with being his willing tool, to be used when he needed her and discarded and forgotten the rest of the time. If this plan did not work, she had no intention of hanging around hoping for the leftover scraps of his affections. She'd rather have his eternal hatred, than continue to be the consolation prize.  
  
This was her chance to get back home without his help, and she was going to take it.  
  
She would need some help, though. The wings would need to be attached to her back, and that was not something she could do herself. Fortunately, she knew exactly the right crook for the job. He had the necessary medical knowledge, was trustworthy enough in his own crooked way, and, most importantly, was scared enough of her to do what she wanted.  
  
With a smile, Maze carefully rolled up the scroll and slipped it into the backpack which held her tools. Then she made her way back to the skylight through which she had entered the building, easily avoiding the lone guard who was making his rounds. Her mind was already busy planning her next steps.  
  


* * *

  
Maze shouldered her cattle prod and looked down at the crumpled, unconscious figure before her. She hesitated a moment, waiting for... something. What exactly, she couldn't say. A stab of remorse, perhaps. Some lingering feelings. But there was nothing. Not even a sense of satisfaction at a job well done, or some sort of grim pleasure that she had brought down the former Lord of Hell.  
  
It had been so easy, too. All she'd had to do was wait for the perfect moment, when he was watching Decker and Cain, and not paying any attention to his surroundings. One quick zap with the modified cattle prod, and he was out like the proverbial light, without the other two having the first idea that he had been there at all.  
  
With a sigh, she slung the unconscious body over her shoulder and carried him to the van she had organized for this little mission. The cattle prod had done a good job knocking him out, but once they got away from Decker's mortalizing influence, Lucifer would probably recover quickly. She did not want him to regain consciousness before everything was done and she was safely away.  
  
As soon as she reached her vehicle, she quickly tied Lucifer up and then poured a specially prepared mixture of heavy sedatives into his mouth, making sure he swallowed them. Contrary to what he occasionally liked to claim, drugs like that did work on the Devil. They just didn't work the same way as on humans. But there were certain substances that, in a high enough dosage, could keep him unconscious for hours.  
  
One last check to make sure her cargo was secured properly and would be unable to get free even if he should wake up unexpectedly, and then Maze got behind the wheel and drove away, heading for Lucifer’s hill estate where she would have the necessary privacy for the next step in her plan.  
  


* * *

  
She dumped the unconscious figure on the bed and took a step back, surveying the scene and planning her next steps. Her mind shied away from the grisly reality of what she was about to do, and gratefully concentrated on all the steps except the crucial one.  
  
First, the clothes. The suit jacket, vest, and shirt needed to come off. Maze pulled out one of her knives, then hesitated and tucked it away again. Instead, she knelt down next to Lucifer and with a skill born from long practice unbuttoned his clothes and slipped them off his shoulders. She rolled him over onto his stomach, freeing his arms from the sleeves as she did it.  
  
Now for the wings. Maze hesitated a second, then straddled Lucifer’s thighs, leaned forward, and placed her hands on either side of his neck. She carefully ran them down along his spine, searching for that one precise spot. There. Fingers dug in deftly, and then she had to fling herself back to avoid being hit by the unfurling wings.  
  
They shot out of whatever pocket dimension they’d been tucked away in, and spread out to their full length before falling limply onto the bed. Fortunately, the room was big enough to accommodate Lucifer’s considerable wingspan.  
  
Once the wings hung down motionlessly over the edges of the bed, Maze approached the recumbent figure again. It was time. No. Not quite yet.  
  
Turning on her heel, she went into the master bathroom. A quick reach into the linen cupboard got her an armful of black towels. She placed them on the bed, then left the room in search of one last thing she needed. Thankfully, there was a well-equipped broom closet just a little further along the corridor.  
  
She returned to the bedroom with the roll of large black trash bags in hand, tore off two, shook them out, and placed them on the floor ready to be filled. Next, she took two of the towels and positioned them carefully at Lucifer’s sides, lifting up the wings to do so. Then she stood back and inspected her preparations.  
  
Everything was ready. The moment she had been dreading had come.  
  
Maze pulled out one of her demon daggers. She took a deep breath to brace herself, and realized with surprise that she was quite calm. The memories of the last time - that horrible night on the beach, almost exactly seven years ago - were there at the back of her mind, but for the first time they were not threatening to overwhelm her.  
  
Every previous time her mind had strayed to that night, the feelings and sensations had swamped her and carried her right back to that horrible event. But now, suddenly, it was as if a glass wall had come down between her and the memories. She could still see them perfectly in her mind’s eye, but they could no longer touch her.  
  
She still knew what she had felt back then, the intensity of her grief, pain and despair, but she no longer felt it. For the first time, she could look back on that night dispassionately. And she realized it had been the beginning of the end.  
  
To be ordered to cut his wings off, after being the one who helped Lucifer clean them, groom them, _care_ for them, had been devastating. And - though she hadn’t realized it at the time - it had ignited the first spark of defiance, of rebellion.  
  
Until that point, Maze had never even thought about refusing to obey one of Lucifer’s orders. Oh, she had questioned plenty of them, argued with him about them, criticized them. On a few, cherished occasions, she had even managed to change his mind and gotten him to rescind his order or change it. Far more frequently, Lucifer had remained convinced he knew best. And she had accepted it, and faithfully carried out whatever he wanted her to do, no matter what she herself thought about it. She might have grumbled, complained, and even cursed him, but she had done his bidding.  
  
But this one had been different. This time, she had refused point blank to carry out his order. She had pleaded with him, begged him not to do this, or at least not to make _her_ do it. They could find some other way.  
  
Lucifer hadn’t listened. Maze had realized very quickly that nothing would change his mind. And for the first time ever, she had not been prepared to accept it. And he, curse him, had realized that just as quickly, and changed his tactics.  
  
Where no amount of shouting or threatening would have moved her, he had used charm, persuasion, and pleading instead. He had used her feelings against her, feelings he otherwise never acknowledged, feelings she now knew he had thought her incapable of having. He had called not on her vowed loyalty, but on her friendship. And it had worked.  
  
In the end, he had gotten his way. Shaking and crying, she had done what he wanted. And she had gotten a bitter lesson, one which she had unfortunately been too stupid to take to heart: Lucifer’s desires would always trump her feelings, her wishes. What he wanted would always be more important than the wants and needs of anybody else.  
  
He would never hold himself back or deny himself something for the sake of someone else. If it was a conflict between his interests and yours, you had to be prepared to take what you wanted, because he would never give it to you.  
  
And now, that was exactly what she was going to do. She had finally learned her lesson.  
  
Once again she straddled his hips and leaned forward. She ran a hand along the base of his left wing, feeling the muscles and tendons beneath the skin, mapping the joint, planning the cut she was about to make. Then she grasped the wing firmly in her left hand, and executed one long, sweeping cut with the demon blade in her right one.  
  
Unlike the last time, she had chosen the spot perfectly. A quick second cut to sever the flesh and skin on the other side of the joint, and the wing fell away. Blood ran freely from the wound, and Maze quickly grabbed a towel from the stack and pressed it to Lucifer’s back. She kept up the pressure for several minutes, until she was certain his healing powers had kicked in.  
  
Her mind was still curiously blank, detached from what was happening.  
  
Removing the now soaked towel, she nodded in satisfaction. The bleeding had stopped almost completely, only a few drops still seeping out of the raw flesh here and there. The wound was already scabbing over.  
  
She studied it for a moment. It was much smoother, much cleaner than the last time. The scars from this one would not look so bad.  
  
One down, one to go. Maze switched the knife over to her left hand, and without hesitation repeated the process for the other wing.  
  
It really was quite easy. Like carving up an overgrown turkey. A laugh escaped her as she thought of Lucifer’s outrage at such a comparison. It was shockingly loud in the silent room, causing her to stop abruptly.  
  
Maze pulled herself together. No time for hysterics now. She had done it. Time to pack up her prize and go. After all, getting the wings was only the first step of her plan to get back home.  
  
She removed the bloody towels and took a second to inspect Lucifer’s back. The two wounds were perfectly symmetrical, and already beginning to heal. It would take several hours before only a pair of scars would remain. If her calculations were correct, the sedatives should keep him unconscious just long enough.  
  
That should also give her plenty of time to get away.  
  
A quick trip to the bathroom to clean her knife and throw the towels into the trash, and then she carefully packed the wings into the trash bags and carried them to the van. As she drove away from the house, she pulled out her phone and made a quick call. Time for step two of her plan.  
  


* * *

  
"Careful there, Manos!" Maze admonished, wincing as the needle went just a bit too deep into her flesh, scraping against bone.  
  
Manuel "Manos" Hernandez was a talented surgeon, whose passion for high bets on slow horses had gotten him into trouble with the wrong sort of people, and ultimately caused him to become one of Maze's bounties. This had been a bit of good luck for him, since Maze had not been the only one on his trail. She had taken out the competition in a very definite way. Hernandez had been grateful, and the two of them had gotten along surprisingly well for the few days it took Maze to get him back to LA and deliver him to the LAPD detective who had tasked her with finding him.  
  
He had been her first - and to be honest, only - choice when she decided to go through with her plan. It had taken more effort than she had expected to get him to do this for her, but in the end a combination of threats, bribes, and reminders of his debt to her had done the trick.  
  
To Maze's surprise, his biggest concern - once he had gotten over the whole thing about the wings being real flesh and blood wings, and her wanting him to sew them onto her back - had been for her wellbeing, and the risks of such an operation. He'd kept going on about muscles and joints and nerves not being there to connect to, and about immune reactions, and all sorts of medical things, until she ended up losing her temper just a bit.  
  
And once she'd gotten him calmed down again and just scared enough to do the job, he had reacted with horror and outrage when she showed him the tools he would have to use for the operation. It had taken a physical demonstration to prove that his nice, sterile, human surgical tools would be completely useless. By then, Maze was pretty certain that the guy was in shock. Not exactly an ideal state of mind for someone who had to perform surgery, but that could not be helped. Neither could the fact that he would have to do the operation without anesthetics. There was no way she would let anybody work on her while she was unconscious and helpless.  
   
After endless minutes, Hernandez finally tied off the last stitch, cut the thread, and took a step back. "Okay, I'm done. I really don't know how you can think this is going to work, though. They aren't really connected to you, it's just flesh against flesh. I couldn't even really match up the blood vessels!"  
  
"I told you, it doesn't matter", Maze replied through gritted teeth. The whole procedure of cutting open her back and sewing on the wings had hurt like a bitch, and her temper was beginning to fray. Holding still while someone was poking you with sharp instruments did not come easy to a demon.  
  
"But they're just hanging there! You won't be able to control them, and when you move they'll almost certainly tear the stitches. I told you, this is crazy!"  
  
He was getting hysterical again. Great.  
  
"Manos, I told you I don't care what you think about this. It's what I want. Now, you've done your part. Your money is in the bag over there in the corner. Just take it and get out of here."  
  
"But I can't just leave you like this! You'll tear open your back when you get up!"  
  
Maze cursed under her breath. Why had she chosen a guy with a conscience and professional ethics for this job? Alright, _because_ he had a conscience and professional ethics, and wouldn't just butcher her. Still, it was a damned nuisance now.  
  
With an effort, she tuned out his continuing protestations and concentrated on her back. The old scroll had unfortunately been very vague about the actual mechanics of this, saying only that the demonic thief had the wings sewn onto her back and then ‘she had made them her own’. Well, the sewing on alone had not done the trick. Something more was clearly required.  
  
She moved slightly, grimacing as she felt the dead wings pull at her back. They really were dead. Dead weight, awkwardly lying on top of her. The only sensations came from her own body. The feeling of feathers against her skin, of drying blood and disinfectant sticky on her back, of the twin expanses of raw flesh where the wings had been sewn on. Maybe some sort of spell or ritual was necessary to make the connection, to turn dead angelic flesh into a functioning part of her body. If so, the scroll had made no mention of it.  
  
Maze cursed herself. All her hard work, and the result was failure. She shouldn’t have acted so rashly, she should have done more research, or tried to find another way. Perhaps-  
  
Pain. Sudden, incredible pain, like steel cables wrapping around her, squeezing tighter and tighter. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. And it didn’t stop. It got worse, the pressure mounting relentlessly, until she was convinced that any seconds now, her ribs would shatter and the iron bands of pain around her chest would just go on squeezing, until they finally cut her in half.  
  
And at the same time there was a second, different pain. Searing, white hot threads of it, spreading out from the wounds on her back, shooting through her until it felt like every single vein and artery was running with liquid fire.  
  
Maze was panting, as much as she could with the horrible pressure still squeezing her. Black spots danced at the edges of her vision, and with every second that passed she was struggling harder and harder to stay conscious. She wanted to give in to the pain, to fall into the welcoming arms of unconsciousness, but something held her back. Some instinct, honed over millennia, was screaming at her that she must not give in, she must fight, she must stay alert.  
  
She fought. She clawed her way back to some rudimentary control of her body, and just when she thought she had finally managed it, another explosion of pain bloomed on her back.  
  
It was the wings. Suddenly, they were there, and they were pure agony. She felt them, every bone, muscle, tendon and nerve, every inch of skin, every feather. All of it burned. The wings were disintegrating, feather by feather, atom by atom, eaten away by the awful fire.  
  
With her last breath, Maze screamed out her rage and defiance as the inferno consumed her utterly.  
  


* * *

  
Maze returned to consciousness. It took her some time to realize that against all expectations, she was awake again. Everything was black, and silent. And there was no pain. For a moment she wondered if she had died and ended up in some sort of limbo. She dismissed the thought as soon as it occurred. Demon. Soulless. If she died, there would be nothing left to pass on to anywhere. And that meant that she was still alive.  
  
Slowly, cautiously, she opened her eyes, and found herself staring at a bunch of tiles, spattered with blood and some other fluids.  
  
Memories came back.  
  
Steeling herself, she took a slow, deep breath. No pain. Absolutely none. She could breathe freely again. She felt fine, actually. But something was different.  
  
The wings. What had happened to them? She could no longer feel the wounds, the dead flesh awkwardly shifting with her slightest movement, pulling on the stitches. No feathers brushing against her naked skin.  
  
With a sense of trepidation, she concentrated on how she felt, on every part of her body she could feel. It still took her a moment for realization to hit. Feet, lower legs, knees, thighs, hips, stomach, chest, shoulders, upper arms, elbows, lower arms, wrists, palms, fingers, neck, head, all present and accounted for. But there was more. There were two additional limbs she could feel. Limbs she knew had never been there before, but which were so naturally part of her now that she could hardly remember not having had them just minutes - hours? - earlier. They were so much a part of her that she had to concentrate hard just to feel them.  
  
Slowly, carefully, Maze pushed herself up onto her forearms so she could turn her head. She concentrated hard and watched as the left wing - _her_ left wing - extended, stretching out until it almost hit the wall, but stopping just in time. She stared hard at it. So different to the dead flesh she had brought here. Now, the wing was most definitely alive, and part of her.  
  
A second thought, this time barely there, and the wing folded in again until it rested tightly against her back. Another hint of a thought made it extend and then fold back again. She repeated the action several times, each quicker, more fluid, more effortless than the last. Then she turned her head to the right and did the same with her other wing.  
  
Finally, Maze threw her head back and laughed. She had made them her own!  
  
She carefully climbed off the operating table, holding on to it as she straightened up, unsure how her new appendages would affect her body’s balance. It quickly became clear that she needn’t have worried. Even though a part of her knew that her center of gravity must have shifted because of the additional mass of the wings, her body reacted as it always had. nothing felt different, or off-balance. It was as if the wings had always been part of her.  
  
Grinning broadly, Maze stepped back from the table and flexed them a few times. Then she concentrated for a moment, and tucked them away. A triumphant laugh escaped her when it worked on the first try. She craned her neck, trying to see her back, and grimaced at the sticky feeling of drying blood and disinfectant pulling at her skin.  
  
Fortunately, there was a large glass window in one wall of the room. On its other side was a dark, empty room, which turned the clear glass into a passable mirror. In the reflection, she could see that the wings were gone, and her back looked unblemished except for the various smears of drying fluids. Perfect.  
  
Well, almost perfect. A shower was most definitely in order. Returning to Hell covered in blood would make for a suitably dramatic entrance, but the fact that it was her own blood would rather spoil the effect. Fortunately, she had come prepared, and the former clinic did have the necessary facilities.  
  
Maze headed for the door, noticing with relief that Manos had apparently had the sense of mind to take the bag with his money with him when he ran away. One point less to worry about. She would clean herself up, and then burn this place down to destroy all traces of what had happened here. And then she would collect what few belongings she intended to take with her, and return home.  
  
Smiling at the thought, she left the room and headed for the showers.  
  


* * *

  
Lucifer was awoken by the dull ache in his back. He frowned in confusion. Had he cut off his wings again? But he had promised Linda not to do that anymore, at least until he could be certain it would be permanent. And he was a devil of his word. He searched his memory, but couldn’t remember cutting them off, or anything else that would account for the pain in his back. His mind was fogged, more so than usual on waking up. Had he had a party, and consumed any new, interesting recreational drugs?  
  
With a groan, he forced himself to open his eyes, and frowned. This was not his bedroom at the penthouse, or any other room there. It was familiar, though. After a moment, he managed to place it. The master bedroom of his mansion in the hills above LA. Strange. He hadn’t been here since the debacle with the false Sinnerman. What had happened? Time to find out.  
  
He pushed himself into a sitting position, and promptly yelled in pain as the ache in his back blossomed into agony. Staggering to his feet, he made his way slowly into the master bathroom to inspect the damage in the mirror there.  
  
Just as he had already suspected, his wings were gone, two crescent shaped wounds on his back all that remained of them. He seemed to have cut them off again after all, but he couldn’t remember doing it. Whatever drugs he must have taken were obviously strong stuff, to make him forget something like that. And they might possibly be responsible for him doing it. Drugs to stay away from, then.  
  
Something about this didn’t seem quite right, though. He continued to stare at the wounds in the mirror with growing uneasiness. They were completely scabbed over, well on their way to healing up. Nothing unusual there, though it meant he must have been asleep for hours. But he still couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something wrong about them. He looked more closely, studying the details.  
  
His wings had been cut off cleanly. Too cleanly. He couldn’t have done this himself. Someone else had cut off his wings.  
  
Cain. It had to have been him. What the Hell was the miserable bastard planning now? What nefarious scheme would require the wings of the Devil?  
  
Lucifer could think of quite a few, actually, but none of them seemed to fit in with that asshole’s likely motives. So either he was missing some important context, or the reason why Cain had stolen his wings was something different.  
  
There were two basic reasons for stealing something from your enemy: either to use it yourself, or to prevent them using it.  
  
Could it be that Cain was worried Lucifer was going to use his wings to prove the truth to the Detective? If so, he was a fool. A malicious chuckle escaped the devil, echoing loudly in the silent building. His wings would grow back soon enough.  
  
But he wouldn’t wait that long. He didn’t care about his severed limbs, but he most certainly would not leave them in the possession of that bastard. Oh no. Time to make Cain pay.  
  
He cast a last glance at his back in the mirror. The wounds were healing rapidly. Lucifer grimaced at the streaks of dried blood marring his skin. Perhaps he should take a shower. No. Time for that later. Besides, what he was planning for Cain would result in a certain amount of mess. He’d have to shower afterwards anyway, and the bastard wasn’t worth cleaning up for.  
  
Determined, he strode back into the bedroom to get dressed. Something pale among the dark sheets of the bed caught his attention, making him pause. A scroll, the parchment old, yellow and brittle. He was about to dismiss it when a small detail stopped him. The tip of a feather was peeking out from somewhere near the center of the scroll. A perfectly white feather, glowing softly. One of his feathers.  
  
That bastard was taunting him! And what was the scroll supposed to be? A distraction, or perhaps an obvious red herring. Did the fool really expect Lucifer to fall for something as blatant as this?  
  
He wanted to leave it lying there, to ignore it. Cain had clearly left the scroll here for him to read. Such glaringly obvious manipulation deserved nothing but contempt. But his curiosity was getting the better of him. Besides, whatever it contained, whatever Cain wanted him to read and believe, might give him an idea of the human’s real intentions.  
  
With an annoyed snarl, Lucifer snatched up the scroll and unrolled it to the point marked by the feather, raising an eyebrow at the script. It had been a long time since he saw characters like these. A momentary pang of nostalgia hit him as he remembered the sun-drenched courtyards and airy rooms of the palace, the glittering Mediterranean Sea, the beautiful young men and women who had partied the nights away with him and Maze. Then he pushed the memories away and began to read.  
  
“No.”  
  
The sound of his own voice echoing through the room startled Lucifer. All thoughts of Cain and his plans had fled. His eyes skittered across the parchment, reading the story a second time even though it was already seared into his brain. Its meaning was only too clear.  
  
“Mazikeen.”  
  
Once again he started at his own voice, unaware that he had spoken the name out loud. Disbelief and denial warred with growing horror. What had she done? What had _he_ done?  
  
Well, the answer to the first question was perfectly obvious. Maze had stolen his wings. But why?  
  
Lucifer knew she had been angry with him, and deep down he was prepared to admit, only to himself, that this was not entirely unjustified. But he never thought for one moment that she would go to such extremes to get back at him. Unless…  
  
The realization came like a lightning strike, making him stagger and sink down onto a corner of the bed, his legs suddenly too weak to keep him upright. Fragments of the story from the scroll danced across his mind. ‘She had made them her own.’ Maze hadn’t taken his wings just to get revenge. She had stolen them for a purpose.  
  
Lucifer remembered how she had asked him to take her home. He recalled her tenseness, her urgency, her stunned disbelief when he refused. Her pleading when she asked him the second time.  
  
That recollection made him pause. Maze had pleaded with him. She had begged him to take her home. His demon never begged. Never. Not even during certain highly pleasurable bedroom games. And he had ignored her pleas, ignored _her_ , too caught up in his own pain to see the torment she was in.  
  
No wonder she chose to do this, to risk this desperate attempt at gaining a way to get home without his help.  
  
To get home. Maze was going to use his wings to leave Earth and return to Hell. She was going to leave him. If it worked. If this old scroll was telling the truth. If it wasn’t, if Maze’s crazy, desperate plan didn’t work…  
  
Lucifer jumped to his feet. He needed to find her before it was too late. This plan of hers was incredibly dangerous. Maze could end up dead, or worse than that. And in the highly unlikely event that it worked as she hoped, she was going to leave. He was going to lose her. He couldn’t lose her. He had to find her.  
  
Lucifer strode determinedly out of the room. He got as far as the top of the stairs before a vital fact presented itself. He had no idea where to find his demon. He didn’t even know where to start looking, since he never bothered to learn where she’d moved to after leaving the apartment she’d shared with the Detective.  
  
And there was no one he could ask. Maze hadn’t been on speaking terms with any of their friends anymore. She had been completely on her own. Isolated. Alone.  
  
It was a cold, ugly thought. A feeling he could empathize with only too well. A mirthless laugh escaped him, unnaturally loud in the empty building. That was just what he hadn’t done, wasn’t it? Empathize. Show understanding. If he had, he would have been there for her, would have helped her through this, and they wouldn’t be in this mess right now.  
  
He had promised Maze that he would never abandon her, but that was just what he had done, wasn’t it? Oh, technically, physically, he hadn’t left her. But there was more than one way to abandon someone. He hadn’t been there for her. Even when she came to him, even when she begged him for help, he had refused without a second thought, and without caring why she was so desperate to go home. He had left her to suffer, alone.  
  
And now she was leaving him, and he had no way of stopping her, or of at least finding her and apologizing to her for how he had treated her. She would have covered her tracks, leaving no traces behind, no trail for him to follow. Nothing except that scroll and the feather, telling him what she had done, and why. Her version of a confession.  
  
The feather. Hope sparked within him, bright and hot, fanned by his desperation. Yes!  
  
Lucifer stormed back into the bedroom and snatched the feather from where it had fallen on the bed. This could work. It had to work. Oh please, let it work.


	2. Home Sweet Hell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Azrael makes an appearance in this chapter. As you may notice, she is different from the canon character we got in "Boo Normal". That's because parts of what became the scene here have been rattling around in my collection of WIP fragments for quite some time, way before she ever showed up on the show. 
> 
> My Azrael is not the "Boo Normal" one, though she does have a few things in common with her. She is closer to an OC than to the canon character.

Lucifer burst through the door of the loft apartment to see his demon crouching in the middle of the open room, just in the process of zipping up a large duffel bag. She rose and whirled around at his sudden intrusion, demon blades flashing in her hands, wings flaring in warning.  
  
He froze and stared. Stunning. Absolutely magnificent. The pure white feathers were a stark contrast to Maze’s bronze skin and her tight black clothing. He noticed with a pang that she had dispensed with her glamour, showing her beautiful demon face. It had been a long time since he had last seen it.  
  
And she was alive. Her crazy plan had actually worked. His wings hadn’t killed her. A profound feeling of relief swept through him. He hadn’t lost her. Yet.  
  
Maze, too, had frozen at the sight of him, but only for a second. A small shift in her stance, a minuscule twitching of the wings warned him that she was about to bolt.  
  
“Wait!” Lucifer took a few steps towards her, but froze again when she raised her daggers, clearly expecting some sort of attack.  
  
“Please don’t go, Maze. Please.”  
  
He saw the distrust flare in her eyes, the tension ratcheting up as she scanned the room for any kind of trap or surprise attack. Her gaze flickered down to her bag, and he knew he had to say something more, or she would be gone.  
  
“I’m sorry.”  
  
That made her eyes widen briefly, but her expression remained cold and hostile. Still, at least she appeared to be listening now.  
  
“I didn’t realize how bad things were with you. How much you were suffering.” He hung his head in shame, but still kept his eyes on her. “I should have realized.”  
  
His demon sneered. “Save your pretty lies, I’ve heard them before.”  
  
“I am not lying!” Lucifer drew himself up and glared at her, anger burning through his contrition.  
  
“Yes you are!” She shouted back at him with equal vehemence. “I told you I was done with all of this. I told you I wanted to go home. I told you that being here, on this cursed world, was torment. But you didn’t realize? Bullshit. You didn't have to realize anything, I was telling you! You just didn’t want to hear it. You don’t give a damn about me, but you can’t stand the thought of no longer having me at your beck and call.”  
  
“That’s not true, Maze. I do care about you. You mean a lot to me.”  
  
His passionate declaration was met with derisive laughter. “Oh yes, I mean so much to you that I had to lock you into that old slaughterhouse freezer to get you to listen to me for a minute. I mean so much to you that you could barely be bothered to listen to me even then, and the only thing that mattered to you was that I'd let you out of there again. Not what I was saying, or my feelings. You showed me exactly how much you care about me back then, and you’ve been showing me ever since.”  
  
Lucifer froze. She was right. He had been so caught up in his desire to find and confront the Sinnerman that he hadn’t paid any attention to Maze’s problems. He hadn’t thought it was important. And at any rate, they could talk about it later, after he’d dealt with his own, much more important problem.  
  
But that had never happened, had it? One thing had led to another, from the Sinnerman to Cain, and he had never taken the time to have that talk with his demon. He hadn’t given her any attention, had never once cared enough to make time for her, to at least listen to her problems, even when he had seen that she was upset. And now, far too late, he finally understood that this had been a fatal mistake. It had been important, and his failure to understand that might cost him dearly.  
  
But Mazikeen was also wrong. He did care about her. Deeply. She meant more to him than he could put in words. They had been together for eons, and he couldn’t imagine a life without her.  
  
“I’m sorry.”  
  
Once again those words gave her pause, and Lucifer seized his chance. “I have treated you badly, and I apologize for that. I promise that from now on, I will do better. I will be there for you, and listen to you.”  
  
“Empty words, Lucifer. Nothing more. You promised me the same when you first stranded me up here. ‘We’re a team, Maze. We’ll have so much fun here, you and me, together.’ But the only thing that ever mattered was whether or not you were still having fun. You never cared about what I wanted.”  
  
“I…” He broke off, unable to deny the accusation.  
  
Maze reached down for her bag, and a fresh wave of panic washed through Lucifer. He had to say something, anything, to stop her. He couldn’t lose her.  
  
“You are right. But I promise that from now on I will care about what you want. I swear it, by my father’s name.”  
  
The invocation of his hated parent clearly had an effect. Maze stood up straight without picking up her bag, and stared hard at him.  
  
“Just please, Mazikeen, please stay and give me a chance to prove it to you.”  
  
For one moment, Lucifer thought he had finally managed to persuade her. Hope rose in him, bright and warm. He could do this. He was going to be the friend Maze needed, the friend she deserved. He would help her see that this world was better than Hell, that they could both be happy here. Together.  
  
Maze brought all this hope crashing down with a quick shake of her head. “No. You’ve had your chances. I’m done with this.” And with that, she picked up her bag and spread her wings.  
  
“No! Mazikeen please!” Desperation made the words spill from his lips. “I love you!”  
  
“Liar.” The reply came fast, but not so fast as to be an automatic denial. Instead, it carried absolute conviction.  
  
“It’s not a lie!” Hurt, anger, fear, and desperation swirled inside him, a roiling, boiling mass in his stomach that almost took his breath away.  
  
“Yes it is. You know nothing about loving another being, Lucifer. The only person you have ever loved and will ever love is yourself.”  
  
The cold certainty of his demon’s words rang in his ears. Lucifer sprang forward, but he was a split second too late. With a powerful flap of her wings, Maze was gone.  
  
He stumbled and fell to his knees in the spot where she had been. “No! Come back! Please, Maze. Please come back. Don’t leave me, Mazikeen. Don’t leave me. I need you. I love you.”  
  
Sobs wracked his body, turning the words into gasps and meaningless moans. He had lost her, the one being who had truly known and understood him, who had been by his side longer than anybody else. And it was all his own fault. He had been so foolish, blind, arrogant, selfish. Never realizing how important Maze was, and how much he was hurting her, until it was too late.  
  
The words echoed in his mind. Too late.  
  
Maze was gone, back to Hell, where he could no longer follow her. He couldn’t even blame her for leaving him, not after how he’d treated her. The only one who deserved the blame was he himself. He had driven her away.  
  
Tears fell unheeded from his eyes, soaking his shirt, dropping onto the floor as he cried out his loss. His demon had left him. He had finally managed to drive her away. And now he was truly alone, surrounded only by humans who could never fully understand what it meant to be the Devil, who had no idea of everything he had gone through, all the things he had seen and done, all the horrors he had witnessed and all that had been done to him. And it was all his own fault.  
  
He remained lying there on the floor, his sobs gradually ebbing away until the tears fell silently while grief, pain, guilt and shame raged through him. Eventually even the tears ceased and he lay there quietly, his mind tormenting him with memories of what he had lost, and all the things he could have done to prevent it.  
  
Finally, his body and mind exhausted by the storm of emotions, he drifted off into an uneasy sleep.

* * *

  
Maze stepped back from the window in the cell door, while inside the hell-loop started again with Lucifer waking up in the bedroom of his hill mansion. She was breathing hard, her mind replaying the scene she had just witnessed, echoing with his words. This was… not what she had expected.  
  
Movement out of the corner of her eye brought her attention to the being standing beside her. She carefully schooled her features into a blank mask before turning and addressing the angel.  
  
“It didn’t happen like that.”  
  
Azrael nodded. “I know. By the time the sedatives you used on him wore off, you were long gone.”  
  
The accusation in her tone made Maze arch an eyebrow, causing the angel to shift uneasily and avoid her gaze. For a moment it looked as if Azrael was about to say something more, but then she remained silent.  
  
Maze gave an annoyed sigh. “Why have you called me here?”  
  
The angel stared at her incredulously. “To save him of course! You have to get him out of there!”  
  
“Why should I?”  
  
It had in fact been her first instinct upon seeing Lucifer in that cell, but she’d resisted the urge. And now, with the confirmation that this was exactly what Azrael wanted, the desire to storm in there, disperse the illusions and drag him out, was finally subsiding. Her natural contrariness, born from demonic racial instincts and fed by millennia of negative experiences with Lucifer’s family members, was winning. Plus, it was fun to see his little sister gape in complete shock and scramble desperately for some argument to persuade her.  
  
“But... But you heard him. He loves you!”  
  
Maze scoffed. “I heard.”  
  
The angel’s shock was slowly replaced by outrage when the demon simply remained silent and regarded her coolly.  
  
“Well? You have gotten the confirmation you wanted, haven’t you? You’re the one he loves, the most important person in his life. That -,” she pointed at the cell door, “- proves it!”  
  
A pitying look was clearly not what Azrael had expected.  
  
“Do you really have no understanding of Hell, after all these millennia? That -,” Maze imitated her gesture at the cell door, “- proves nothing. All it means is that at the time of his death, he was most strongly obsessed with my leaving him. He was feeling guilty about it. More guilty, at that time, than about anything else. It has nothing to do with his supposed love for me.” She tilted her head, and before the other woman could start up with a new round of protestations, asked the one question that did hold a certain interest for her. “How did he end up here, by the way?”  
  
“You left him.”  
  
Maze glared at the angel, but for once Azrael remained unimpressed. “That’s really it, Mazikeen. Everything else is just unimportant details.”  
  
“I’ll be the judge of that.” She spoke with the full hauteur of the Queen of Hell.  
  
The angel beside her hesitated a moment, then nodded. “When Lucifer realized you were gone, he became determined to find a way to go after you.”  
  
“Obsessed, you mean.” It was what Maze had expected. Lucifer was quite predictable in that regard. He was a bad loser, and he could not stand being denied something he desired.  
  
Azrael grimaced, but she did not deny it. “I don’t know what he was hoping to accomplish.”  
  
“Probably thought he could change my mind, make me come back to him. You heard him in there,” Maze interjected.  
  
“Maybe. Anyway, he searched everywhere, tried everything.” She paused and looked away. “He even called me, and asked me to bring him down here.”  
  
“But you didn’t do it.” Maze’s tone was carefully neutral.  
  
The angel shook her head, her voice tinged with a mixture of regret, sorrow, and defensiveness. “I couldn’t.”  
  
“You’re down here every day. Surely it wouldn’t have been such a great burden to take your brother along for one of your trips?”  
  
Once again Maze’s voice was calm, expressing nothing but a mild curiosity. She bit back a smirk when Azrael glared at her, temper flaring.  
  
“You don’t understand! Father… he expressly forbid all of us from helping Lucifer. And he took special care to tell me that I was not to interfere in any way. He ordered me not to answer Lucifer’s call.”  
  
“And you obeyed, like the good little angel you are.” Maze snorted scornfully, and was pleased to see the angel flinch.  
  
“I had no choice!”  
  
The demon scoffed again, taking pleasure in the irritated look it produced. For a moment she considered arguing the point, but it wasn’t worth the bother.  
  
“So, Lucifer was obsessed with getting to me, and you lot all refused to help him. Then what? Are you trying to tell me he got so desperate he committed suicide?”  
  
Her tone was scathing, but the possibility that this was what had happened bothered her. She knew better than most just how obsessive Lucifer could get, and how reckless.  
  
“No, it wasn’t like that.” Azrael sighed. “I don’t think the thought of doing that ever crossed his mind. When he couldn’t find a way to get here immediately, he began searching for other ways to get into contact with you. He called in favors, hired specialized researchers.”  
  
Maze stared at her in confusion before realization began to dawn. “When you say other ways, you mean magic. Summoning. He tried to find a way to summon me.”  
  
The angel nodded. “You, or at least some other demon who could carry a message to you.” She hesitated, then went on, “and I think that wasn’t the only thing he was looking for. I think he was also searching for a way to open a portal into Hell.”  
  
“What?!”  
  
This bit of information shocked Maze. Opening a portal into Hell was unbelievably dangerous. If you succeeded, there was no way to control what came through. No way to control the portal, period. If you were crazy enough to go through it, it could snap shut behind you at any moment. And of course, opening a portal between Hell and the human world was an absolutely sure fire way of pissing off God. All those demons and other denizens of Hell escaping and wreaking havoc on Earth… There was no way Lucifer’s father would have allowed that.  
  
Azrael gave her a haunted look. “I know. But I can think of no other explanations for some of the things…”  
  
She trailed off, clearly unwilling to elaborate further. A tense, uncomfortable silence fell between them. After a few long seconds, Azrael roused herself and went on. “He stopped working with the LAPD, you know. Stopped completely, didn’t even answer their calls.”  
  
Maze couldn’t suppress a short laugh. “I bet that went down well with Chloe.”  
  
To her secret delight, Azrael’s lips twisted in a grimace at the mention of the mortal. Her voice was sharp when she answered. “She was too busy with her affair with Cain to care. It was the other humans, her ex-husband and Miss Lopez, who tried to contact Lucifer.”  
  
Again there was a brief pause before she continued, “Miss Lopez finally managed to get him to assist them on a case that involved a man who had murdered his ex-wife and kidnapped their seven year old daughter, who he had been abusing for years.”  
  
A snarl escaped Maze, making the angel smile grimly. “Yes. Lucifer felt the same way.” She sighed. “Decker and Cain got involved in the case. They tried to push Lucifer out, said he was mentally unstable.”  
  
Maze growled. “That never bothered them before.”  
  
“Yeah. He wouldn’t hear of it, of course. And he was right.” Tears glittered in Azrael’s eyes, and Maze braced herself for what she was about to hear. “He saved the child, you know? Figured out where that piece of scum was hiding her and got her out. But the guy came home at just the wrong moment, and he wasn’t going to let her go. He had a gun. Lucifer shielded the terrified kid.” The first tear slid down the angel’s cheek. “And then, just as my brother was about to deal with that human, the Detective showed up and interfered, distracting him. And the murderer shot him. Point blank, right in the heart.”  
  
That didn’t surprise the demon. “Always knew she’d be the death of him one day, one way or another. That’s what your father created her for.”  
  
She was surprised to hear Azrael laugh bitterly and see her nod in agreement. The angel hesitated a moment, then drew herself up and looked straight into Maze’s eyes.  
  
“Look, Mazikeen, I know you and my brother had some issues, and that he hasn’t treated you as well as he should. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about you. Lucifer loves you. You heard him say it in there. He really does love you.”  
  
“ No.”  
  
The cold finality of the word would have given most people pause. But not Azrael.  
  
“He does! He wouldn’t say it if he didn’t mean it,” the angel protested immediately.  
  
Maze only scoffed once more. “Bullshit.”  
  
Azrael glared at her, clearly offended on her brother’s behalf. “Lucifer doesn’t lie. You know that!”  
  
“Are you really that bloody naive? Because if you really believe that, I’ve got some nice real estate to sell you.”  
  
She almost laughed out loud at the mixture of shock, outrage and confusion on the other woman’s face. Apparently she really didn’t get it.  
  
“He does not lie.”  
  
This time Maze couldn’t hold back the derisive laugh. “Depends on how you define ‘lie’ though, doesn’t it?”  
  
She rolled her eyes when Azrael only stared at her in confusion. “I grant you that he doesn’t tell blatant falsehoods. Unlike the rest of you lot.” The corners of her mouth curved at the tiny flinch that jab caused. “But there are lots of other ways of being dishonest. Omission, evasion, misdirection, deliberate misunderstanding, carefully placed non-sequitors that the other won’t suspect. Lies by any other name. Lucifer is a master of them all.”  
  
Azrael still looked confused and vaguely offended, but now Maze could detect the first hints of uncertainty in her expression. She gave an annoyed sigh, and decided to illustrate her point.  
  
“Take this grand declaration of love that you think should change everything for me. Do you really believe this is the first time I’ve heard him say something like that?”  
  
Clearly, Azrael had in fact thought so, because she startled and managed to look even more shocked than before. Maze rolled her eyes.  
  
“I’ve heard him say that he loves me dozens of times over the years. And every time, there was a qualifier attached to the statement. Sometimes spoken aloud, sometimes not. But it was always there. ‘I love you’ - because you’re a useful and reliable tool. ‘I love you’ - as a friend. ‘I love you’ - but other things are more important. ‘I love you’ - but I will never take your feelings into consideration when deciding what to do. ‘I love you’ - because you are my property. ‘I love you’ - but I don’t actually care for you. I love the way you fight, I love your devious mind, I love the sex with you, I love your beauty and your grace. I love your face.” She sneered. “I’ve heard it all. And none of it means what you think it means.”  
  
Maze paused, and some of the anger she had been feeling drained out of her. “I used to think it did mean something.” She saw Azrael’s surprise at this admission, and smiled mirthlessly. “Why do you think I stayed with him for so long, even when he decided to leave Hell? Yes, I thought we had something. I was wrong.”  
  
“No, -”  
  
“Yes. He showed me the hard way just how wrong I was.”  
  
It looked like the angel was going to continue arguing about it, but then she seemed to realize that it would be futile.  
  
“Okay. I get that you don’t want anything to do with him anymore. But you can’t leave him in there! Please, Mazikeen. No matter how badly he’s treated you, he doesn’t deserve to suffer for all eternity!”  
  
“He thinks he deserves it. That’s why he’s in there.”  
  
Azrael scowled. “Just because he believes it doesn’t make it true. You should know that.”  
  
Maze had to concede the truth of that, but she wasn’t willing to just give in to the angel’s demands. “If you want to save him so badly, why don’t you go in there and get him out?”  
  
One look at the other woman’s face was enough.  
  
“Ah.” The corners of Maze’s mouth twisted into a smirk. “You tried that already.”  
  
Azrael nodded miserably. “He didn’t listen to me. He just pushed me aside. All he cares about is getting to you, and he thought I was trying to stop him. I tried to explain, but he just wouldn’t listen!”  
  
“Of course not. He never listens. You should know that.” Her smirk widened at the half-hearted glare she got for throwing the other woman’s words back at her. “Maybe you should have tried looking like his Detective.”  
  
She rolled her eyes at the angel’s startled look. “Yes, I know that you can make people see you as whoever you want them to see. Part of your Angel of Death shtick.”  
  
Azrael opened her mouth, but she remained silent, and shifted uncomfortably. Maze’s eyebrows shot up. “Well, well, well. So you actually did think to try that? That’s… surprisingly devious of you. Guess you’re not quite such a goody-two-shoes after all.”  
  
“Didn’t work, though.” The angel was clearly bitter about it. “He didn’t listen to her either. Shoved me out of the way, and accused me of not caring about you and being happy that you were leaving.”  
  
“Well, Decker certainly didn’t care about my problems until they interfered with my baby-sitting. And she didn’t give a damn about where I went when I moved out. I doubt she was heartbroken when she found out I was gone.”  
  
Azrael’s lips twisted, but she did not disagree. Silence fell for a few moments, then she drew herself up once again. “Please, Mazikeen. I’m asking you, begging you. Please get my brother out of this cell. I can’t bear to see him suffer like that. I’ll do anything you want if you save him.”  
  
Maze raised an eyebrow. “Anything?”  
  
A smirk spread across her face as she watched the angel squirm. But after a moment, Azrael raised her head defiantly. “Yes. Anything you want.”  
  
“Tempting. But I don’t make deals. That’s your brother’s thing, not mine.” It felt good to see her expression fall, the hope in her eyes go out. “Besides, we both know that the true conditions of your favor would be ‘anything, as long as daddy-dearest doesn’t forbid it’. And that’s not worth much, is it? Because any situation where I might need a favor from the Angel of Death is one where your father will not like what I would ask of you.”  
  
She could see the thoughts racing through Azrael’s mind, the implications of what she had offered, and what Maze might ask of her, slowly dawning on her. Fear blossomed in the angel’s eyes, panic even at the thought of being asked to defy her father. And yet… There was actually a struggle going on in there. Now that was interesting. The outcome was a foregone conclusion of course, she was never going to defy Him and rebel like her brother had done, but the fact that Azrael was struggling with it at all… That was worth knowing. It might come in useful one day.  
  
It took a surprisingly long time, but in the end the angel’s shoulders slumped and she nodded. “You’re right. I can’t defy father. Look at what he did to Lucifer, and he was his favorite son.”  
  
Maze snorted, and Azrael rolled her eyes. “No matter what Amenadiel now believes, Lucifer always was father’s favorite. And mother's, too. I think that was part of why they started fighting."

Maze raised a surprised eyebrow, then considered it. Yes, it was plausible. "Fighting over their favorite toy."

Azrael snorted in agreement. Then she sighed. "Anyway, I am not, and never was, among the favored children. I wouldn't dare show even a fraction of the defiance Lucifer used to show our father. Only favored children can get away with anything like that. Favored sons, really.”  
  
Another useful bit of information which Maze filed away carefully. A small sympathetic noise escaped her. She knew what it felt like for your parent to prefer your brothers.  
  
Azrael’s gaze flickered to her, surprised by this acknowledgment of shared feelings. Then her expression turned grim again. “You’re right. I can’t really offer you anything. But I can’t just stand by and leave him in there, either.”  
  
The angel looked away, staring unseeingly. “He’s the only one of my siblings who was always nice to me, who took the time to play with me, and taught me things. He was always a good brother to me.” She shot a quick glare at the demon beside her. “And before you say it, I know very well that I have not been a good sister to him. I abandoned him, just like the rest of us. I wasn’t there for him when he needed it most.”  
  
After another moment of silently staring off into the distance, Azrael once again looked straight at Maze. To the demon’s surprise, her eyes were shining with gratitude. “You’re the one who was there for him and took care of him. Thank you for that, Mazikeen.”  
  
Maze froze, shocked to the core. Never in her entire existence would she have expected any member of Lucifer’s family to acknowledge what she had done for him, or to express any sentiment except disgust about her relationship with their shunned brother. Against her will, she found herself beginning to like Lucifer’s sister.  
  
She gave a curt nod of acknowledgment.  
  
Azrael decided to seize the chance offered by this lessening of hostility. “Please, Mazikeen. I don’t want you to forgive Lucifer for what he’s done to you, or to believe his words. But please don’t leave him to suffer in there for all eternity. Please help me get him out of that cell.”  
  
“And then what?”  Maze arched an eyebrow. “Once he’s out, what will happen then? We both know how he is when he’s obsessed with something. Or someone. I’m not interested in having him harass me for the rest of eternity.”  
  
She smirked when the angel grimaced. They both knew Lucifer well enough to know he would not give up easily. Azrael seemed lost in thought for several long seconds, then she sighed.  
  
“I could take him away from here, back to Earth.”  
  
“Against his will?” Maze doubted that his little sister could manage that, or for that matter that she would truly be willing to go that far.  
  
Azrael’s lips twisted. She clearly didn’t like the idea, and had apparently not considered that this was what she would have to do. But once more she managed to surprise Maze.  
  
“I don’t think I’m strong enough to overpower him. But if you help me… You could knock him out. Then I could take him back to Earth.”  
  
“He’ll hate you for it. And he’s not someone who forgives easily.” Maze wondered if Lucifer’s sister really understood the gravity of what she was suggesting.  
  
“I know.” Azrael gave her a bleak look. Perhaps she did understand. “But it’s better than leaving him to suffer.”  
  
Maze studied the angel carefully, and then nodded. “Alright. But you owe me for this. Big time.”  
  
“Of course.”  
  
Azrael smiled, and the demon wondered if she had given in too easily. But then, she knew that the other woman was right. Now that she had seen him in that cell, Maze couldn’t leave Lucifer in there. No matter how much he had hurt her, she found herself unable to enjoy his suffering.  
  
It was yet another reminder that her time on Earth had changed her, and she had been unable to reverse those changes. A demon should never feel uncomfortable about witnessing suffering. They should revel in the downfall of those who hurt and betrayed them, glory in their plight. And any creature who had even the least claim to the title demon should celebrate the suffering of an angelic creature, and laugh at the idea of the Devil being stuck in his own Hell.  
  
But she just couldn’t do it.  
  
Maze sighed deeply, then pulled back her shoulders and stepped up to the cell door. Inside, the loop was just starting again with Lucifer waking up in the bedroom of his house in the hills. She waited, watching impassively as he discovered his wings gone. She could feel Azrael standing right behind her, watching over her shoulder.  
  
A derisive snort escaped her as he jumped to the wrong conclusions, but his devastation when he realized the truth made her clench her jaw. The angel shifted, and Maze had to fight down the urge to flare out her wings in warning. Thankfully the other woman remained silent, perhaps sensing her dangerous mood. They continued to watch, and Maze tensed as the right moment to intervene approached.  
  
And then, as Lucifer arrived outside the perfect copy of her loft back in LA, she opened the cell door and stepped in. A few quick steps, a tiny concentration of will, and she took the place of her image just as the door flew open.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know I'm evil to stop there. And I have to warn you that it may take a while until I can post the last chapter, because the characters are fighting me. But I promise that I will finish this story eventually.


	3. Maybe Someday

Lucifer burst through the door of the loft apartment to see his demon standing in the middle of the open room, a large duffel bag at her feet. Maze turned at his sudden intrusion, demon blades flashing in her hands, wings flaring in warning.  
  
He froze and stared. He wasn’t sure what he had been expecting. Mazikeen’s bloody corpse next to his severed wings? Maze with a pair of fluffy white angel wings sprouting from her back, a stunning contrast to her dark skin? Whatever possibilities his subconscious mind had prepared for, it had not been the sight that now greeted his eyes.  
  
Magnificent. Perfect.  
  
The moment he saw her, Lucifer knew that this was the only way a winged Mazikeen could possibly look. No fluffy feathers for his demon. If these had indeed once been his wings - and he assumed they were, since there was no other explanation for Maze suddenly having wings - no trace of their angelic provenance remained.   
  
Dark where his had been light. Leathery skin instead of feathers. Bat wings instead of bird wings. The skeletal structure was clearly visible, looking deceptively delicate, almost fragile. Only the sharp claws at the end of each finger belied that impression, hinting at how dangerous those wings could be. Just like their owner. Lucifer felt an overwhelming desire to reach out and touch them, to explore every inch of his demon’s new limbs.  
  
He took a few steps towards her, but froze again when she raised her daggers, clearly expecting some sort of attack.  
  
“Please don’t go, Maze. Please.”  
  
His demon stared coldly at him, but at least she lowered her knives and didn’t look like she was going to bolt at any second anymore. “No, Lucifer. I told you already, I am done with this world. I want to go home, and I am going home.”  
  
“Look, Maze, I know you’re hurt, and you just want to get away, but take it from someone who tried: you can’t outrun your feelings. Going back to Hell won’t help.”  
  
Maze scoffed. “It’ll be better than staying here. And even if it isn’t, it won’t be worse. At least Hell is familiar. It’s my home.”  
  
Lucifer knew he had messed up in his relationship with her, but he would make it up to her. If only he could make her change her mind and stay. Maybe if he made her see what she was giving up...  
  
“But you will be all alone down there. With nobody to turn to if you need someone. Nobody you can trust, nobody who understands you.”   
  
A derisive laugh greeted his words. “And that’s different from here how?”  
  
“You have friends here.” Lucifer knew it was the wrong thing to say, but it was the only thing he could say.  
  
Maze snorted, her face twisted in disgust. “ _Friends_.” She spat out the word as if it left a vile taste in her mouth. “You mean people who betray me and lie to me. People who use me. People who expect me to be there for them, but are never there for me.” The look she gave him could easily have frozen Hell. “I’d rather be alone than surrounded by _friends_ like that.”  
  
It hurt, though he had expected nothing less. The worst part was that Lucifer knew he deserved every word of it.   
  
“I’m sorry.”  
  
That made her eyes widen briefly, but her expression remained cold and hostile. He needed to give her more, and he could only hope that he would manage to find the right words convince her to give him one last chance. And then the real work would begin. Because if there was one thing Lucifer was absolutely certain about, it was that words would not be enough to get his demon to forgive him this time. He would have to prove himself with actions.  
  
If she gave him the chance. If he could talk her into staying, and letting him show her that he could change. For her. Because she was worth it.  
  
“I’m sorry, Mazikeen. I was an idiot, and worse, an arse. An insensitive, self-centered arse.”  
  
A twitch of her lips and a nearly silent scoff indicated that she agreed with him. It wasn’t exactly encouraging, but it was better than no reaction at all.  
  
“I wasn’t there for you when you needed me. I didn’t listen to you. And I hurt you. I am sorry for all that, Mazikeen. I apologize.”  
  
Maze stared silently at him. Her expression was closed off, cool, carefully blank. It gave nothing away. There was no acknowledgement of his apology. Lucifer sighed.  
  
“I know this isn’t enough. But I want to make amends. I want to be the kind of friend you deserve, and the kind who deserves your friendship.”  
  
At the word ‘friend’, she stiffened visibly. Lucifer winced, but decided to forge ahead. There was nothing else he could do.   
  
“Yes, Mazikeen, friend. You have always been a good friend to me. An exceptional one, really. Much better than I deserve. Just like you were a good friend to the others. But we let you down. We were not good friends to you. _I_ was not a good friend to you. But I want to change that. I promise you that I will change. I will be there for you, and listen to you. I _will_ put you first.”  
  
Maze snorted. “Oh sure. You’ll put me first _now_. Now that Decker has chosen someone else. Now that you can’t have her. And how long is that going to last? The moment she changes her mind and snaps her fingers, even if it’s just for one of your cases, you’ll go running after her again.”  
  
“No, it won’t be like that. I promise, Mazikeen.” Lucifer was beginning to get truly desperate.  
  
“And that’s supposed to be worth something?”  
  
Was Maze seriously doubting his promises? He drew himself up and glared at her. “I am a Devil of my word.”  
  
“Yeah right. You’re a Devil of your word, right until you decide not to keep it. Like when you cancelled your deal with Cain. You promised him you would find a way to kill him, remember? But you have broken that promise.”  
  
“That was entirely different!”  
  
“Different how?”  
  
Maze was staring at him expectantly, and Lucifer realized a second too late the metaphorical chasm yawning before him. He paused, at a loss what to say. His demon smiled grimly.  
  
“That’s what I thought. You thought your father was taking a shot at Chloe to punish you for helping Cain, and immediately broke your deal with him. Never mind that nothing actually happened to her. Never mind that you didn’t even bother to find out if that bomb had been placed there before you brought back Abel. Never mind that if your father had truly wanted to punish you, she would have been toast.” The grim smirk had disappeared, replaced with a ferocious glare. “And now you’re trying to claim that you wouldn’t do exactly the same thing with your promises to me?”  
  
“I wouldn’t!”  
  
“Why should I believe you?”  
  
Lucifer took a step forward, then held up his hands beseechingly when Maze spread her wings in warning. “Because I never cared about Pierce, Cain, whatever you want to call him. But I do care about you, Mazikeen. I know you don’t believe it, but you mean a lot to me. And I don’t want to lose you. I can’t lose you. Not after everything we’ve been through together. And I want to make things right between us. Please, give me a chance to do that.”  
  
His heartfelt declaration was met with derisive laughter. “Oh yes, I mean so much to you that I had to lock you into that old slaughterhouse freezer to get you to listen to me for a minute. You showed me exactly how much you _care_ about me back then, and you’ve been showing me ever since.”  
  
“I’m sorry. It was wrong of me to ignore you like that.”   
  
His shoulders slumped. There really was nothing he could say to justify his actions back then, or in the time since then. He had known how much her friendship with Linda had meant to Maze. He had seen how uneasy she had been about finding out that the Doctor had grown close to his brother. And he had seen her storm out of that restaurant with tears in her eyes after confronting them. He had seen all that, but he had done nothing about it.   
  
“My behavior has been inexcusable. But that is going to change, Maze. I swear, by anything you care to name, that it will change. _I will_ change. I will be a true friend to you from now on.”  
  
“You can swear all you want. We both know those words aren’t worth the breath it took to say them. You didn’t listen to me or be there for me when it mattered. You refused to take me back to Hell because of Chloe.”  
  
“That’s not really…” Lucifer broke off when Maze’s glare turned up a notch.  
  
“You mean you lied to me?”  
  
“No! I didn’t lie. I just…” He trailed off helplessly under her withering look.  
  
“I don’t care how you try to sugarcoat it. Either you didn’t tell the truth about your motives, or you did in fact refuse to take me back to Hell because of Chloe. Either possibility only proves that trusting your promises now would be foolish.”  
  
“No. Please don’t say that. This will be different. I will listen to you and be there for you. If you really want to leave LA, we could go somewhere else.  New York, London, Paris, anywhere you like. We could travel the world, stay if we like a place, have fun, move on when things get boring.”   
  
“And how long is that going to last? Until you get a call from Decker because she needs your help on a case? Or maybe until she comes to her senses and realizes Pierce is an asshole who is only using her?”  
  
“You think he’s only using her?” Concern filled Lucifer, but there was also a faint note of hope. The Detective choosing to get involved with Pierce had hurt and disturbed him. And while he’d hate for her to get her heart broken by the other man, a small part of him couldn’t help wondering if it would make her see the error of her ways and perhaps-  
  
Sharp, scornful laughter pulled him out of his thoughts. “I see. It seems my estimates of the duration of your attention for me were still hopelessly optimistic.”  
  
“What? No, Maze, no! That’s not… I’m just worried about the Detective. You know she’ll be hurt when she realizes the truth.” He knew he was sounding too defensive, and he could see she didn’t believe him. Lucifer silently cursed himself. Why had he let himself be distracted?  
  
“Uh huh. Right. She’ll be so hurt that she’ll throw herself into your arms. And then the two of you will live happily ever after. As long as you do everything she and your daddy want, of course.” She drew back and crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Well, I’m not staying to watch that horror show.”  
  
“No! Please, don’t leave me!”   
  
He jumped forward and desperately grabbed her arm. Maze immediately pulled herself free, swiping a wing at him. A razor-sharp claw sliced through the air a fraction of an inch before his eyes, causing him to take a very quick step back again.  
  
“I am not staying here, Lucifer. I’m going back to Hell. Back home.”  
  
She meant it. The realization was painful. His demon was leaving him, and there was nothing Lucifer could do to stop her. He was going to lose her, perhaps forever. It was an unbearable thought. He opened his mouth, but any protest he could have made died on his lips when he saw the cold finality in Maze’s gaze.   
  
“There is nothing you can say or do to change my mind,” she confirmed his thoughts.  
  
Lucifer nodded sadly. He knew he couldn’t stop her. Perhaps more importantly, he was beginning to think that it was wrong for him to even try. He had done enough damage to her. But he couldn’t stand losing her. Life without his demon by his side was simply unthinkable. That left only one option.  
  
“Then take me with you.”   
  
That brought her up short.   
  
“Excuse me?” Maze sounded completely incredulous.  
  
“Take me with you.” Lucifer smiled softly. “I’d rather be in Hell with you than on Earth without you.”  
  
“Really?” There was disbelief in her voice, and something else. Something he couldn’t identify.   
  
At the back of Lucifer’s mind, long-ignored remnants of his self-preservation instincts were clamoring for him to be careful, very, very careful, that his next words were of paramount importance. They weren’t telling him anything he didn’t already know.  
  
“Yes. Take me with you, Mazikeen. I want to return to Hell with you.”  
  
“Are you absolutely sure that you want to go back to Hell?”  
  
Once again Lucifer’s atrophied survival instincts were screaming at him that there was something wrong here, something more to the question, something going on which he didn’t know or understand. He ignored them.  
  
“Yes. I am certain.”  
  
Maze scoffed, her lips twisting into a smirk. “Very well. Come on then.”  
  
She tucked away her demon blades and motioned for him to come to her.  
  
Lucifer stepped up to Maze’s side and prepared for the indignity of having her carry him in her arms, but she simply grabbed his hand. Instead of unfurling her wings, she folded them in tightly and turned away from him, stepping towards a door in the far wall. He frowned.  
  
“Maze?”  
  
She tugged at his hand, forcing him to take a step towards her. “Come on, let’s go.”  
  
“Yes, of course. But it won’t work like this. You’ll have to carry me. Like I carried you when we came here, remember?”  
  
That got him an eye roll and an annoyed scowl. “Yes, I remember. Now, if you really want to come with me, follow me.”  
  
“Aren’t you going to take your bag?”  
  
She gave the item in question an irritated look. “It’s not important.”  
  
“But-” Lucifer decided he’d better shut up when Maze transferred her irritated look to him.  
  
“Right. Let’s go.” She didn’t give him any time for further questions. Gripping his hand firmly, Maze pulled him after her through the door Lucifer assumed led to her bedroom.  
  
In this assumption he couldn’t have been further from the truth. Darkness enveloped him, and out of it rose familiar sights. Lucifer staggered as realization hit him, his hand instinctively grasping one of the smooth basalt columns that formed the walls of the corridor.   
  
Memories washed over him.  
  
Oh.  
  


* * *

  
Maze let go of Lucifer’s hand as soon as they were both out of the cell. She watched as the truth about his current location dawned on him and the influence of the cell wore off, allowing his memories to return.   
  
When the realization made him stagger, Azrael gave a squeak - really, there was no other word for it - and took a step forward. Maze quickly stretched out a wing, blocking the angel's path. She ignored the outraged look it earned her. Getting out of a cell and shaking off its effects was unpleasant enough without someone clutching at you and asking you silly questions. Sentimental sibling reunions could wait, she wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible.  
  
Once it looked like Lucifer had fully grasped the reality of his situation, Maze lowered her wing again. Azrael immediately took the opportunity to rush forward, envelop her brother in a hug and start sobbing against his chest. The demon smirked as she watched him squirm in discomfort and awkwardly try to extricate himself.  
  
“Azrael. Please, stop this. Let me go.”  
  
His pleas fell on deaf ears, and his attempts to free himself only made his sister hold on tighter. He cast a helpless look at Maze, silently asking her for help. It only made her smirk more.  
  
Eventually, the angel got herself back under control and loosened her hold enough to look up at her brother. Lucifer quickly stopped her incoherent apologies. “Yes, yes, we can talk about all that later. What are you doing here, Azrael?”  
  
The question only caused another stream of disjointed syllables amid gasps and sobs. Maze rolled her eyes and decided to step in. “She came to me and begged me to get you out of that cell.”  
  
Lucifer turned to her and raised an eyebrow, surprise mingling with hope. “And you did it?”  
  
Maze scowled. “Your sister can be very…”  
  
“Persuasive?” He was smiling softly.  
  
“Annoying,” Maze corrected him coldly.   
  
A chuckle accompanied the fond smile he now directed at the woman who was still clinging to him. “That, too.”  
  
“Don’t start reading anything into my actions that isn’t there. I only got you out to stop her pestering me.”   
  
That made him stop smiling. “Thank you, Mazikeen. No matter why you did it.” He nudged Azrael, and finally managed to get her to let go of him. “And thank you, sister, for coming down here and annoying Maze into getting me out.”  
  
Azrael gave him a watery smile. “It was the least I could do. I couldn’t bear the thought of you in there, suffering. I’m so sorry Luci, if I had helped you before…”  
  
She started crying again, prompting her brother to pat her awkwardly on the shoulder. “It’s alright, Rae. I understand.”  
  
Maze rolled her eyes. “As heartwarming as all this is, I have better things to do than watch you two deal with your family issues. So why don’t you take it elsewhere?”  
  
Lucifer straightened up. “I’m not leaving. I meant it when I asked you to take me with you in there. I meant every word, Maze.”  
  
The demon only arched an eyebrow. “So did I.”  
  
He nodded.  “I’m staying here. And I’m going to prove to you that I can change. I can be a true friend to you, Maze. A partner. The kind of man you deserve, who does appreciate you and is there for you.”  
  
Maze stared at him coldly. “And what if I don’t want you here?”  
  
“What? But I…” He was at a complete loss. Maze didn’t want him, even when he was willing to live in Hell with her?   
  
“I told you, Lucifer. I do not trust you anymore. You make all those great declarations, but we both know you’re really in love with Chloe Decker. And the moment you see a chance to get her back, you will forget all your promises to me.”  
  
“I love _you_ , Mazikeen.”   
  
She scoffed at this declaration. “No you don’t. You love the things I can do for you.”  
  
“No, Maze. No. I love you.”   
  
There was desperation in his voice, but also a hint of uncertainty. Maze smiled grimly.  
  
“Sure. You love me. You just don’t care about me, or my feelings. You don’t even really believe that I have feelings.”  
  
“That’s not true!” Lucifer’s indignation withered under her cold stare. “Alright, I admit that I used to believe that demons didn’t have feelings. But I was wrong. You showed me that. And I do love you and care about you.”  
  
“Oh right. You just never bothered to show any of it. Not even after Decker chose someone else.” She snorted in disgust. “Even then, did you spend one second being there for me? No. You refused to let me go home, and you just expected me to accept that, and to continue suffering up on Earth. You never looked to see how I was doing.” Her glare was full of contempt. “You could have called, or invited me for drinks, or a coffee, or any of those things friends are apparently supposed to do when someone they care about has been hurt. But you did nothing. Because you didn’t care.”  
  
He stood there, dejected, unable to refute the facts. “I didn’t think you’d want to see me.”  
  
Maze scoffed. “Of course. It would have been uncomfortable for you to face me after your refusal, so you took the coward’s way out.”  
  
“No, no that’s not… I was trying to be respectful of your feelings.”  
  
“My feelings?! Well, let me tell you how your _respectful_ treatment made me feel. I was suffering. I was in pain. I was alone. My best friend had betrayed me and lied to me for weeks. My other best friend was no longer speaking to me. My roommate’s ex had practically thrown me out of my own home, and my roommate, who claimed to be my friend, didn’t give a damn about it. She’s probably relieved that I’m gone.” She had been close to shouting, but now her voice dropped, becoming calm, dark, and as cold as the vast interstellar space. “And my oldest friend, the one who’s known me for millennia, did nothing. I begged you for help, but you refused. Want to know how I felt then? Devastated. Betrayed yet again. Abandoned. You abandoned me!”  
  
The shout echoed along the corridor, leaving dead silence in its wake.   
  
Maze could see the impact of her words, the dawning realization of just what he had done to her. The horrified look on Lucifer’s face gave her a grim satisfaction. And she also saw the exact moment he pushed it all aside to try and argue his case some more.  
  
“Maze, I-”  
  
“No. Don’t you dare. I was your friend for millennia, Lucifer. I stood by you and helped you rule Hell. I covered for you when you ran off to have your little adventures on Earth, and made sure you still had a kingdom to come back to. And then you dragged me up to Earth for a quick torture job, and stranded me there when you decided you didn’t want to go back. You never asked me what I wanted.”   
  
“But-”  
  
Maze glared him into silence. “And I still stayed with you, and did everything you wanted. But make no mistake, I never liked the human world, where I constantly had to hide who and what I was, where nobody respected me. And I missed my home. But I put up with all that because of you. For you. Because you said we were a team. Until you decided you didn’t need me anymore and cast me aside.”  
  
“Now wait just a moment, Maze.” Lucifer drew himself up, righteous anger radiating from every pore. “I think you’re leaving something out there. A little detail like the fact that you betrayed me. You went to Amenadiel behind my back and told him about Doctor Linda. You had sworn an oath of loyalty to me, out of your own free will, and you broke it. Now, I admit that I deserve a lot of blame for how I treated you in the recent past, but let’s not pretend that I’m the only one responsible for that. When it comes to the destruction of our friendship, you fired the first shot.”  
  
“Oh no. You do not get to shift the blame like that.” Maze got right up in his personal space, stabbing an angry finger at his chest. And he should consider himself lucky it was just a finger. “I didn’t swear that oath in a vacuum. It was part of a deal we made. Do you remember your part of that deal, Lucifer?”  
  
Lucifer took a step backwards and rolled his eyes. “Of course I remember. I promised you my trust.”  
  
“Your full and complete trust,” Maze corrected him coldly.  
  
“So? That’s what I gave you. I even went on trusting you after you’d betrayed me!”  
  
“Expecting someone to always be there to do your bidding is _not_ the same as trust! You promised me I’d be your companion, your confidante, your trusted lieutenant. We’d be a team, with you as the leader, of course but still a team. Partners, even if unequal ones.” Some of the anger drained away, leaving behind only emptiness. She stared straight ahead, seeing not her current surroundings, but their past. “That’s what we were, here in Hell. Partners. Or at least that’s what I thought we were. But then we went to Earth, and everything changed.”  
  
For once, Lucifer didn’t voice some kind of protest the moment she stopped speaking. Maze brought her gaze back to him and found him staring at her with a strange mixture of emotions. There were still traces of his earlier anger, but now the dominant emotion seemed to be confusion. And there was some sadness there, though for what, she couldn’t say. And beneath all of it, barely detectable except to someone with her expertise, the first, tiny inklings of guilt. Perhaps he was finally beginning to understand.  
  
“Yes, everything changed up there, among your _fascinating_ humans.” The word was dripping with bitter sarcasm. “You began spending more and more time with them, and you didn’t want me there with you anymore. You found yourself a human confidante, who had no idea who and what you really were. And then you got yourself a human partner, too. One who doesn’t believe you no matter how often you tell her who you are. Who ignores all the evidence before her that you really are what you claim to be. Who disapproves of your deals, your lifestyle, your sexuality, practically everything about you.”   
  
Her next words held all the finality of a hundred-ton granite slab sealing the entrance of a tomb. “And despite all this, despite the fact that she makes you physically weak, that she can injure and even kill you, and that she is a pawn of your father, you still ignored all your promises and cast me aside to run after her.”  
  
It gave her no pleasure to see the stricken expression on his face.  
  
“Maze-”  
  
“Save your words, Lucifer. They are meaningless. Your actions have spoken for you.”  
  
He slumped, the last of his anger draining away. “I understand, Mazikeen. Really, I do. You are right. I did all these things, and no excuse can justify that.”  
  
Silence fell for a moment, and then Lucifer drew himself up, determination filling him once more. “So let my actions speak for me now. I’m going to stay here, Maze. I’m going to show you that I can change, that I _have_ changed. I will be a true friend to you, one who deserves your friendship in return. Things can go back to the way they used to be, when you were happy here with me.”  
  
A tentative, hopeful smile began to spread across his face.  
  
“No.” Maze’s ice cold reply stopped him short. “This is my kingdom now. I worked hard to become its Queen, much harder than you ever did. You are not going to waltz in here and take that away from me. I will not allow it.”  
  
“I don’t want to take it away from you!” Lucifer protested. “You can continue to be the ruler of Hell. I’m perfectly willing to let you have the whole damn thing.”  
  
“Oh yes, you’ll _let_ me. That’s exactly what everybody will believe.” Maze was vibrating with rage at the thought. “Not that I am Ruler of Hell in my own right, but that the only reason I’m sitting on the throne is because you _let_ me. Because you decided that I should sit there, and the moment you choose to take over again I will be forced to step aside. Everybody will know that I am only Queen by your sufferance, and that you are the real King. And that means I will never truly be the Ruler of Hell at all.” She drew herself up, wings flared out, every inch the Queen she was. “No. I will not let that happen. I’d rather shove you back into that cell than let you do that to me.”  
  
“No, don’t do that! I’m sure my brother…” Azrael trailed off as both Lucifer and Maze turned to glare at her, united for a moment in their dislike for this interruption of their argument.  
  
Once he was certain that his sister would remain quiet, Lucifer took the opportunity to give his own reply. “I didn’t mean it that way. And I’m sure we can find a way to make it clear that you are the Ruler here. I could swear an oath of loyalty to you, anything you want.”  
  
“And you think that would convince anybody? When all of Hell knows you canceled your deal with Cain, and broke your earlier promises to me?” Maze laughed derisively. “If you really believe that, then you know nothing about demons at all.”  
  
Lucifer threw up his hands in frustration. “Well, what else can I do? It’s not like I have a choice here, Maze. I’m down here because I died. And since I don’t have my wings anymore, I can’t just pop back up to Earth.”  
  
“Azrael will take you back. She has already agreed to do it.”  
  
She bit back a smirk when he turned to his sister and gave her a look that made the angel squirm. The smirk turned to an exasperated scowl at his next words.  
  
“So, father wants me back on Earth, does he?”   
  
There was an edge in Lucifer’s voice that warned the two women that he was about to become fixated on this idea. To Maze’s secret delight, the insinuation that she was doing their father’s work raised Azrael’s hackles.   
  
“I have no idea where He wants you to be or what He wants you to do. He has not spoken to me on this topic.” She glared at her brother when he tried to interrupt her. “I have offered to take you back to Earth because Mazikeen made it clear that she does not want you here.”  
  
The betrayed look on Lucifer’s face made Maze chuckle.  
  
“You two had this all planned out, haven’t you.” He scowled, and then a vicious smirk appeared on his features. It was an expression Maze knew only too well. “But it seems to me you’ve overlooked a little detail. There were witnesses to my death. People saw me die. I can’t just suddenly come back to life in front of them!”  
  
Azrael opened her mouth to argue with her brother, but Maze beat her to it. “What people? The piece of scum who murdered you? He’s dead. The traumatized little girl? Nobody will believe her, and anyway she’ll probably be happy that the man who saved her isn’t dead. Pierce? He knows who and what you are already.”  
  
“You left out the Detective. She saw me get shot, too.”  
  
“I thought you wanted her to finally know the truth?”   
  
“Yes, but…” Lucifer froze.  
  
Maze laughed derisively. “Ah, so we’ve finally reached the real reason why you don’t want to go back. You’re scared how she will react. Scared that she will reject you once she knows who and what you really are.” She sneered at him. “You don’t want to stay in Hell because of your feelings for me. You’re just too cowardly to find out the truth about your wonderful human partner.”  
  
He shifted his stance as he got ready to protest her accusations, but Maze took a step forward and stabbed a finger at his chest again. “You’d rather give her up forever - because we both know daddy’s little miracle is never going to end up down here, no matter what she does - than face the possibility of her rejecting you. Because if _you_ leave _her_ , if you never give her the chance to reject you, then you can tell yourself that she wouldn’t have rejected you.”  
  
The smirk was back on her lips, every bit as vicious as Lucifer’s earlier expression. “Oh, you’ll have to blame yourself for losing her, but then, that’s what you want, isn’t it? Poor Lucifer, he fucked up his chance at true love. How tragic. But you’ll be able to go on living with the illusion of what could have been. You’ll have the dream that she would have loved and accepted you, instead of being forced to face the reality.”  
  
She could see the impact of her words on him. Good. But she wasn’t quite finished yet. “You pretend that you’re so concerned about the poor humans, but the truth is that you are only ever worried about yourself.”  
  
“No. No, I do care about-”  
  
“Oh really? And yet you haven’t wasted one thought on the others who have gotten you into this mess. What’s her name, Ellen and the Douche.”  
  
“Ellen?” Lucifer asked, confused.  
  
Azrael sighed. “She means Ella Lopez.”  
  
The confused frown did not disappear. “What do Miss Lopez and Daniel have to do with this? They weren’t there when I was shot.”  
  
“Right. And that means your death won’t affect them at all, hm? Nobody will blame them for getting you involved in a case after you got dismissed from it because Decker and Pierce thought you were too unstable.” Maze shook her head. “Yeah right. I bet telling them it’s their fault you got killed will be the first thing Decker does. And even if she doesn’t, you can bet that’s what the gossips at the precinct are going to say. The Douche will probably be fired over that, after all it’s not like Pierce has any reason to want to keep him around. As for Ellen, who knows. Maybe they’ll send her back to wherever she came from.”  
  
She paused, judging Lucifer’s reaction. It looked like he was beginning to see the consequences his death was going to have on the humans. Azrael, too, was looking shocked and deeply concerned. Maze studied the angel for a moment, long enough for her to feel the attention and look up. Their gazes met.  
  
The look of horror in Azrael’s eyes made Maze raise an eyebrow. Her estimation of Lucifer’s sister rose a notch. She clearly had grasped the full consequences of the scenario Maze had laid out.  
  
A quick glance at her brother showed that he wasn’t getting it yet. Maze barely managed to suppress an eye roll. Still too busy thinking about himself to see. Well, she didn't have the time to wait for the epiphany to hit him eventually. She would just have to tell him.  
  
“I wonder how long it will be before they become my guests down here.”  
  
He frowned at her. “Why should they end up down here? They’re good people. Alright, Daniel has made some mistakes in the past, but he’s doing his best to redeem himself.”  
  
Maze growled in frustration. Really, Lucifer could be so thick sometimes. “Because, you idiot, they are going to feel guilty that they got you killed. And we all know where that kind of guilt leads.” She cast a significant glance at the cell door.  
  
“No, they wouldn’t...”   
  
Lucifer shook his head, still trying to deny it. But Maze could see that the truth was finally dawning on him.  
  
“No, they aren’t responsible for what happened. I went in there alone. I made sure they couldn’t follow me and stop me in time.”  
  
“But they were the ones who got you involved in the case. They went to you, even though they knew everybody else thought you'd gone crazy and were completely unstable. And they knew how you could get, and still didn’t keep a close enough eye on you to prevent you from running off half-cocked and confronting that murderous scum on your own. And they don’t know that you would have been fine if Decker hadn’t showed up at the worst possible moment. If they’re as _good_ as you think they are, they are going to blame themselves.”  
  
He stared at her, open mouthed, as the full consequences of his death finally sank in. Maze arched an eyebrow.  
  
“So, are you going to let your so-called friends suffer because of your utter selfishness, or are you going to do something about it?”   
  
Unfortunately, it seemed his obsession with her was still too strong. “Maybe Azrael could…”  
  
“No.” His sister cut off that line of arguing immediately. “I am not going to go to your friends and tell them that you’re happy where you are now, or whatever lies you want me to tell them. And it wouldn’t work, anyway. They’d just think I was one of those religious folks who usually spout stuff like that.”  
  
“I wasn’t suggesting that you just say something like that.” Lucifer scowled at his sister. “And anyway, they would believe you if you showed them your wings.”  
  
“No! Absolutely not! I am not revealing myself to humans just to clean up your mess. You may have gotten away with it, but you do remember that proving the existence of the divine to humans is still one of Father’s big prohibitions, right?”   
  
Maze couldn’t quite suppress a smirk at seeing Azrael confronting her big brother like that. Really, she was beginning to like this particular angel.  
  
The other woman glared at Lucifer when his expression turned pleading. “No. Forget it. Unlike you, I’m not a favored child. I am not going to risk Father’s wrath because you are too selfish to help your friends yourself. Taking you back to Earth is dangerous enough for me. I will not fall because of you.”  
  
That finally seemed to shut him up. They all stood there in silence for several moments, and Maze had to stop herself from tapping her toes impatiently.  
  
Finally, Lucifer’s shoulders slumped. “You’re right. I have to do this myself.”  
  
Maze perked up. Yes! She had managed to find the one way to break through his obsession and get him out of her kingdom! By now she had almost given up hope of managing that, and been prepared to go back to just knocking him out and letting Azrael take him away. But that would have been risky, Lucifer might have managed to guilt his sister into bringing him back. This was better. If he went of his own accord, there was at least a chance that she wouldn’t see him again for a long time.  
  
“Excellent! Well, don’t stand around here, your sister’s ready to take you. Bye bye!”  
  
Lucifer turned his attention back to her, apparently not quite as ready to give it up as she had thought. “Maze-”  
  
The demon scowled. “What? You said you were going!”  
  
“You just want me to go back to Earth so you’ll be rid of me!” There was pain in his voice. Pain that she didn’t want him to stay with her, that she was rejecting him and sending him back to Earth alone.   
  
Maze looked Lucifer straight in the eyes, and nodded.   
  
“Yes. I don’t give a damn about your human friends, just like they never gave a damn about me. And I do not want you messing things up for me down here.”  
  
His shoulders slumped in resignation. “If that is really what you want -”  
  
“It is.”  
  
“- then I’ll go.”   
  
“Good.”  
  
He flinched, then drew himself up and gave her a sad look. “I love you, Mazikeen. I know you don’t believe me, but I do. And I really wish there was a way to mend things between us.”  
  
Maze stared coolly at him and did not dignify that with a reply. He wilted slightly under that stare, but then rallied one more time.  
  
“Maybe, someday, you could pay me a visit? I know there were some things back on Earth that you enjoyed doing. You could drop in for a bit of partying, and perhaps let me pour you a drink? You will always be welcome at Lux.”  
  
She was prepared to shoot him down in no uncertain terms, but a movement behind Lucifer distracted her before she could say anything. Azrael was miming at her frantically. Maze frowned at the angel, wondering what the hell she was trying to communicate. She got it just as Lucifer noticed her distraction and turned to see what was going on behind him.  
  
So, Azrael wanted her to leave him some hope, did she? Maze almost snorted out loud. Foolishness. It would only encourage his continued obsession with winning her back.  
  
The Angel had stopped her gestures just in time when her brother turned around, and was now giving him a look of such fake innocence that she might as well have continued with her shenanigans. Maze chuckled silently at the put-upon sigh Lucifer gave, and rolled her eyes when she got yet another pleading look from the other woman as he turned back to her.   
  
Seeing his hopeful expression made her hesitate. It was foolish to encourage that hope. She knew that. And it would be a false hope in any case, because she was never going to pop up there to have drinks with him. And yet… If his sister wanted him to have false hope, to suffer from clinging to that desperate spark and every day have the pain of having it disappointed… It would be a fitting punishment. One could almost call it poetic justice.  
  
He was still staring at her with that faint hope in his eyes. And at the same time, she could see the fear of rejection in there.  
  
“Mazikeen?” Lucifer seemed to have realized that she had reached a decision. Both hope and fear flared brighter, but he still asked, in this case apparently preferring the harsh knowledge of the truth to the safety of not knowing for certain.  
  
“Maybe. Someday.”   
  
It took some effort not to add any quip about cold spells down here.  
  
The fear disappeared from his eyes. The hope dimmed, but it did not go out. Lucifer nodded.   
  
Before he could say anything more, Azrael stepped forward and took hold of his arm. “Let’s go.”  
  
Lucifer nodded at her, then directed one last, sad smile at Maze. “Au revoir, Mazikeen.”  
  
She pointedly did not reply with the same words. “Good bye, Lucifer.”  
  
The two women exchanged a look and a brief nod, and then Azrael wrapped her arms around her brother’s torso, spread her wings, and the two siblings finally disappeared.  
  
Maze took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She cast one last glance at the door of the cell that had held Lucifer, then walked away briskly. Time to get back to work.  
  


* * *

  
Lucifer looked around in confusion. He had expected to find himself back in the front room of the dilapidated house where he had been killed, not in this foggy, grey, featureless landscape. Actually, landscape was the wrong word. There was no land here. This was not any sort of place at all.   
  
He turned to his sister. “I thought you were taking me back? Why are we in limbo?”  
  
Azrael shrugged. “I wanted to give you a chance to get yourself together and plan what you’re going to do once you’re back in your body.”  
  
“I’ll make it up as I go along.” He waved away her protests with a dismissive gesture. “In case you’ve forgotten, I’ve never been one for making plans. Improvisation is my thing.”  
  
“You mean going in half-cocked, with no idea what you’re actually doing, and without thinking about the consequences is your thing,” Azrael shot back sourly. “And where has that gotten you?”  
  
He sighed in annoyance, unwilling to concede the point. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter what happens once I get back to Earth.”   
  
He slumped, and wished there was something here in this grey nothingness where he could sit down. All the energy seemed to drain out of him at once, leaving behind a hollow emptiness.  
  
“I fucked up, Azrael. The one thing in my life that mattered, the one good thing that I had, and I didn’t realize it until I had managed to destroy it.” He squeezed his eyes shut tightly to keep the tears from falling.  
  
A gentle hand cupping his chin made him look at his sister again.  
  
“I know things look bleak right now, but-”  
  
Lucifer laughed mirthlessly. “But what? Maze hates me. And she has every right to hate me. If anybody else had treated her the way I did, I’d have advised her to cut them out of her life forever. Preferably literally. I rather wish that’s what she had done with me.”  
  
“Don’t say that.” Azrael looked genuinely distressed. “Never say that, Luci. Please.” She lowered her head, averting her gaze. “I don’t want to lose you, brother.”  
  
That made him soften. “Oh, Rae.”  
  
He reached out tentatively, and was taken by surprise when Azrael wrapped her arms around him and hugged him with all her strength, squeezing the breath out of him. It made him laugh through his tears. “Easy there, Rae. I thought you wanted me alive.”  
  
Azrael immediately released her hold on him and took a step back, leaving Lucifer feeling bereft. He wasn’t the hugging type of person, but it had felt… nice.  
  
His sister gave him a watery smile. “Sorry.”  
  
“It’s alright. My ribs will recover.” Lucifer smiled back.  
  
Silence fell for a few seconds, before Azrael spoke again. “Look, about what you said. Mazikeen doesn’t hate you.”  
  
“Oh yes she does, and rightly so.”  
  
“Okay, maybe a part of her does. But another part of her still cares about you. I’m sure of it.”   
  
“Oh, and you’re suddenly the expert on demon feelings, are you?” Lucifer shot back sarcastically. He wanted to believe her, but he couldn’t forget Maze’s own harsh words to him. Completely deserved words, of course. And all the more painful for that.  
  
Azrael only rolled her eyes. “Of course not. But I do know that it wasn’t my begging and pleading that made her rescue you from that cell. If she really didn’t care about you anymore, she would have left you in there. Less trouble for her. And she could easily have told me to get lost.”  
  
His sister did have a point there.   
  
“Alright, so maybe some small part of Maze does not hate me. That doesn’t mean she will ever forgive me, or want to have anything to do with me again.”  
  
“She didn’t say no to your invitation to come visit you someday.”  
  
“She also didn’t say yes to it,” he shot back.  
  
Azrael had to concede this. “No, she didn’t. But a maybe is better than a no, isn’t it? At least with a maybe, she left you some hope.”  
  
“Hope.” Another mirthless laugh escaped Lucifer. “Oh yes, Maze left me some hope. Hope I can torture myself with every day. She knows I won’t be able to stop myself from clinging to it, from praying every day that maybe this will be the one where she shows up at Lux, or I see her somewhere in the city. And every time the day ends without it happening, it will hurt.” He shook his head, a strange, almost fond smile twisting his mouth. “Always knew she was Hell’s best torturer, and always will be.”   
  
Azrael stared at her brother with a mixture of sympathy, regret, and confusion. He sounded proud of the fact.  
  
“I’m sorry, Luci. I-”  
  
He interrupted her before she could say more. “It’s alright. You wanted her to leave me some hope. It’s just…” Lucifer sighed again. “Sometimes hope is the worst thing you can have.”  
  
Once again they stood there in silence, and once again Azrael was the one who eventually broke it. “What are you going to do now?”  
  
Lucifer gave her a look, and then shrugged. “Go back. Deal with the fallout of my resurrection. Go on living, I suppose. Try not to hope too much. It’s not like I have a choice, do I?”  
  
“I could take you somewhere else on Earth, if you want to,” Azrael suggested tentatively. “Away from LA. Somewhere without painful memories.”  
  
Her brother shook his head. “The memories are in my head, not in any place. And anyway, Maze and you were right. I left a mess behind in LA, and I’m the only one who can clean it up. It’s my responsibility. I just wish...”  
  
He trailed off and sighed yet again.  
  
Azrael looked at him carefully.  “What do you wish for, Lucifer? If there’s anything I can do to help you…”  
  
“Thank you, sis.” He smiled at her and put a hand on her shoulder, squeezing gently. Just when Azrael was certain he wouldn’t answer her question, Lucifer spoke again. “I wish there was some way I could talk with Maze. She and I, we used to talk a lot, you know. She was my advisor, my confidante. We’d talk about things we’d do, or that happened during the day. When there was a problem, like a brewing rebellion among the other demons, we’d plan our countermeasures. And sometimes we’d share things from our past. I’d tell her about my life before we met, and she’d tell me about hers. I miss that. I wish I hadn’t stopped talking with her.”  
  
His sister stared at him, surprised. She had known of course that Lucifer and Mazikeen used to be close, but like the rest of her family, she had assumed that the relationship had been largely sexual. To hear her brother speak so fondly about simply talking with his demon made her see the whole thing in a different light. She realized that once again, she had been underestimating the demon, and the role she had played in Lucifer’s life.   
  
“Perhaps…” The word was out of her mouth before she even knew what she wanted to say. Azrael groped for the flicker of an idea that had occurred to her. “Perhaps you could write her. And I could deliver your letters. I’m down there often enough, it would be no trouble.”  
  
Lucifer actually considered the idea before shaking his head. “I doubt that Maze would be willing to read anything I could write her. She’d think I was just trying to get her to change her mind and take me back.”  
  
Azrael raised an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t you?”  
  
“No! Yes. I don’t know.” He growled in frustration. “Of course I want her back. I can’t help wanting her back, no matter how much I know I don’t deserve her. But I don’t want to manipulate her into it. I know she doesn’t want me anymore. I just…” He growled again, unable to put his desires into words.  
  
“I know.”   
  
He gave Azrael a dubious look, but she did seem to understand him.  
  
“Look, I think writing her might not be a bad idea. You don’t know with absolute certainty that Mazikeen will refuse to read the letters. And even if she does, it might still do you good to write. Getting your thoughts down on paper can help you see clearer what it is you want.”  
  
“Speaking from experience there, sis? I never took you to be much of a writer.” The corners of Lucifer’s mouth quirked upwards and he raised an eyebrow at her.  
  
Azrael shrugged and grinned ruefully. “I read it somewhere.”  
  
“Ah, now that I do believe. You always were a bit of a bookworm. I remember when I found you in the library at Alexandria. You were so absorbed with that scroll you were reading that you didn’t even notice me until I took it away from you. And then you were very colorful in your expressions.” He was grinning broadly and shaking his head at the memory. “Most unbecoming language for an angel.”  
  
“You made me lose the line. And it’s rude to steal people’s books away when they’re reading.”  
  
“I had called your name several times, but you just hissed at me to be quiet, and waved your hand, trying to chase me away like some pesky insect. You didn’t even bother to look up.” Lucifer gave her an exaggerated wounded look trying not to laugh when his sister merely scowled at him.  
  
“I was concentrating! Those fourth dynasty hieroglyphs were hard to read! And I had just gotten to the good bit.”    
  
The corners of Azrael’s mouth twitched traitorously as she did her best to glare at her brother over his long-past misbehavior. She would never say so out loud, but she had missed their bickering. They had always done this, as long as she could remember. But unlike her other siblings, Lucifer had never crossed the line from friendly to nasty with her.  
  
“You were reading an account of a military expedition to Canaan, written by a royal accountant of the army. What could possibly qualify as ‘the good bit’ in something like that?”   
  
Azrael smirked. “The camp gossip, of course.”  
  
“Oh? Do tell.” Lucifer perked up, his interest clearly awakened.  
  
His sister scowled. “I didn’t actually get to read it, since _someone_ just had to interrupt me.”  
  
“And you didn’t continue reading after I left?”  
  
“The job called. I realized that I had been reading for too long already, so I went to take care of my duty for a while.” Azrael sighed. “And then one thing piled onto another, and before I could go back and take another look at the scroll, the library was burned down. I never found another copy anywhere else.”  
  
Lucifer had the grace to look chagrined. “Ah. Sorry about that, then.”  
  
“It was a long time ago.” She gave him a sharp look, but with a spark of mischief dancing in her eyes. “Just promise not to do it again.”  
  
Her brother laughed. “Alright, alright. I promise not to interrupt you when you are about to read ancient Egyptian gossip.”  
  
That earned him an annoyed glare from his sister, before they both grinned at one another.  
  
Slowly, Azrael’s grin faded. “We should get going. I do need to get back to my job, you know.”  
  
Lucifer became serious again. “I know. And there’s no use in staying here any longer.”  
  
He straightened up and looked at her expectantly. Azrael hesitated for a moment. “Will you think about my suggestion?”  
  
For a moment, her brother frowned in confusion. Then his expression cleared. “With the letters, you mean?”  
  
Azrael nodded.  
  
“I’ll think about it. Maybe, if I have the time, and can’t think of anything to distract myself… I guess it’ll depend on how things go once I get back to LA.” Lucifer paused for a moment, then looked away from his sister’s knowing gaze. “You could always drop in and pester me about it, if you think it’s such a good idea.”  
  
Azrael smiled. “I will drop in every now and then, if that’s okay with you. And not just to pester you. I missed you, Lucifer.” Her smile became deprecating. “And yes, I know that it’s mostly my fault we haven’t seen each other for so long. But I’d like to change that. If you’ll let me.”  
  
“Well, who am I to deny anybody a second chance?” Lucifer smiled. “I missed you, too, Rae. And I’d like to have you visiting every now and then. It will be nice to have someone to talk to who knows me.”  
  
The words ‘now that Maze is gone’ hung unspoken in the air between them. Azrael wanted to reassure her brother once again that all was not quite lost yet, but she stopped herself. She had no idea if there really was any chance for those two ever to repair the relationship that had been destroyed. The last thing Lucifer needed right now were empty words, and false hope.  
  
“Let’s go then. Back to Earth with you.”  
  
With those words she took the last step forward, wrapped her arms tightly around him, and concentrated hard on the time and place she needed to go as she spread her wings.  
  
With a whoosh they were gone, back to a world full of uncertainties, and a spark of hope that maybe, someday, things would be better again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not exactly the happy-ish ending I hoped for when I started it, but Maze was having none of that, so this is how it worked out.
> 
> And yes, I did leave myself an opening for a sequel there. I do have an idea or two about where this story could go, but I can't promise anything.


End file.
